


so maybe like this...

by sunsetdawn20



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2692787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetdawn20/pseuds/sunsetdawn20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five scenes that show just how differently things could have worked out if other characters had been sent back to 1973. (Please ignore all the reasons why that didn't/couldn't happen.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	so maybe like this...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daymarket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daymarket/gifts).



 

 

The car slows down and eventually stops in front of the rusty gates.

 

"Are you certain this is the right place, dear?" the elderly lady asks, eyeing the park so obviously overrun with weeds, and Storm makes herself flash an almost convincing smile at her.

 

"My aunt can't see very well, she needs my help to... get things right," she says and her spine hurts with tenseness at just how close the lie is to the truth. "That's why I'm here. To get things _right_."

 

The woman smiles and takes her wrinkled hands off the steering wheel long enough to squeeze Storm's.

 

"You're a good girl," she says. "Your aunt is a lucky woman."

 

There's a note of sadness to her voice that answers too many questions Storm wasn't quite prepared to ask about why an elderly lady would so gladly pick up a teenage girl on the side of the road. Loneliness is a terrible tyrant - Storm is glad she had many years and many dear friends teaching her to forget that.

 

"Thank you," she says warmly and gets out of the car.Something inside her chest twists at the sight of the sign of the school lying forgotten next to the gate in the uncut grass. The Professor tried to prepare her for what she might find, but Storm wonders if maybe it's these small things he forgot to warn her about that will be the hardest to take.

 

She walks up the path to the mansion with a heavy heart and an awkward teenage gait that she has been glad to be rid of these past years. She tries to keep her mind focused on the task ahead but she feels not quite herself in clothes she only vaguelyremembers from many years ago. Her body feels three sizes too small for the woman she's grown into and her powers feel strange and alien in a way they haven't for a very long time.

 

She forces her thoughts back on the task ahead. It won't be easy, she knows that, but she trusts to find the right words to make Beast trust her, and she hopes she will find a way to spark the Professor's need to help those that need him. She can't deny she has her doubts about freeing Magneto, but she trusts the Professor's judgment, and she's seen enough lingering sad looks between the two men in past years to know what it is she's set out to mend. Even with all that's happened, she's somehow not surprised that their unique bond and their love for the girl Mystique is said to have been once, is supposed to be strong enough to stop the end of the world.

 

Storm takes a deep breath and knocks on the heavy doors before her thoughts could go any darker and start wreaking havoc around her.

 

A pair of uncertain eyes appears as the door opens just a bit, and Storm can't hold back a delighted smile.

 

"Hello, Hank," she says and watches her friend's brows furrow in confusion behind his glasses.

 

"I'm sorry but... do I know you?"

 

"Not yet. But we will be very good friends one day," she says and watches the lanky boy Beast used to be blush a little. "You have no reason to believe me, but I have been sent here to help and if you will only let me in to explain, I promise things will be set right."

 

Hank frowns and Storm can tell a thousand questions are running through his head, but in the end all he asks is:

 

"How do you know?"

 

Storm smiles. "I have hope."

 

\------

 

Hank stands in front of the door for almost thirty-five minutes before he brings up the courage to knock. Not many things have frightened him lately, not even the threat of extinction, but facing Charles the way he remembers him to have been in 1973 fills him with terror. He lets his mutation take over for a few moments and it fills him with a strange sense of calmness in a way it wouldn't have back then - _now_. It calms him in a way that even just a few years ago he wouldn't have thought it ever could. He breathes and lets the power of his natural form seep into his bones, and it's that power and certainty he clings to as he slowly shifts back into the scrawny kid he hasn't been for a very long time and knocks on the door.

 

There is no answer so he quietly pushes down the handle and walks into the room. It's just as he remembers - dark, stuffy, claustrophobic - the memory of it never left him, even decades later, even as the halls were bursting with life again, he couldn't come into Charles' room without a faint, unfounded dread to find him collapsed on the floor, eyes unfocused. Instead he always greeted by warm eyes smiling in invitation and casually traded jokes over Charles' receding hairline and Hank's own surplus of fur. It is this image he tries to recall as he crosses the room and kneels down next to Charles, who is sitting in the floor, head thrown back, pupils dilated, back pressed to the edge of the bed Hank remembers Charles barely ever sleeping in by this time.

 

"Charles," Hank says quietly and puts a hairless hand on his friend's shoulder.

 

Charles startles at the touch and Hank hates that - knows that if Charles was himself, he'd have heard Hank agonizing over coming in, and he'd be teasing now with smiling eyes and wrinkles around the edges.

 

"What is it Hank?" is all Charles asks in a dazed voice and without looking at Hank. He just keeps staring at the ceiling like it holds all the secrets of the universe.

 

"Charles, I'm so sorry but you have to listen to me," Hank starts, squeezing Charles' shoulder harder. He waits until his friend slowly turns his head to face him. "Do you trust me, Charles?"

 

"What?" Charles blinks, as if disoriented.

 

"Do you trust me?" Hank repeats.

 

"Why are-"

 

"Just answer the question, Charles."

 

Charles lifts a heavy hand and rubs at his face.

 

"Yes," he mumbles from behind his palm but Hank hears and decides it has to be enough.

 

"This is going to be hard to believe, but you must know I would never joke about this..."

 

Charles looks up slowly, his tired face transforms into a worried frown, so Hank continues quickly.

 

"My mind was sent back from the future so that I can help you - us. Things are about to happen that will change the course of history in a way that would be the death of us all. It is not too late, yet, Charles, but it is in your hands alone."

 

For a long time Charles just keeps staring at him with an unreadable expression. Then he asks:

 

"Are you drunk?"

 

"No," Hank says firmly.

 

"Am _I_ drunk?"

 

"Possibly, but this is still real."

 

Charles sighs. "I was afraid you'd say that."

 

"We need you, Charles," Hank says. "We need you to be the man you know you are. The future needs you, our kind needs you. Raven," he says and watches Charles' eyes shoot daggers at him. " _Raven_ needs you."

 

Charles looks like he wants to contradict him but lacks the energy to fight. Hank tries to smile but it comes out awkward in a face that feels almost alien after so much time. He tries to count it as a small victory that Charles believes him without much of a fight - but it's hard not to think of what that means, how in 1973 he was all Charles had and Charles just can't afford to doubt even for a second the only person he can still lean on. Hank doesn't know how his friend will react when he brings up Erik, though. So he decides that piece of information can wait until after Charles had a chance to shower.

 

\---

 

Silence hits him like a brick of walls.

 

For the first time in countless decades he's alone in his mind with only his own thoughts for company and even those are muted with too much alcohol. It feels like a desolate wasteland inside his head and it almost knocks him off his feet.

 

He has to hold onto something instinctively when he realizes he's standing and it takes a few moments for him to get used to the sensation and not feel like his knees are going to buckle under him any second. He takes deep breaths to clear the thick white fog surrounding his brain and takes a few uncertain steps. Then a few more.

 

He keeps walking up and down in his room - quietly, not to alert Hank - until he starts feeling the effects of the serum fade and his steps become shaky and faint, distant voices start pushing at his mind. He sits down on the bed, leans back against his pillows, and welcomes the voices.

 

It's only a few hours later he reaches out to Hank's mind. Within seconds, Hank bursts into the room with a worried look on his face that only deepens when Charles smiles at him.

 

"My friend, I'm going to need your help," is all he says and he knows explanations can wait where Hank is concerned. He quietly helps Charles into his chair and wordlessly guides him to Cerebro. He hesitates when Charles asks to be left alone, but doesn't say anything.

 

And when Charles emerges less than half an hour later, announcing that they should air out a guest room because Erik is coming home, Hank might secretly think Charles has finally lost his mind completely, but he does as he's told.

 

\---

 

Kitty leans back against the uncomfortable seat of the plane tiredly and closes her eyes for a second. The trip back, the hours of silent pleading with the shadow her Professor is in this time, the intense focus it took to single-handedly break Magneto out of the Pentagon - all that is slowly taking its toll on her. And there's still a long way yet to go.

 

There's a fragile silence stretching between them in the claustrophobic confines of the plane and Kitty knows it's only a matter of which of the two men is going to break first.

 

The Professor is digging his fingers into the armrest so hard his fingertips are turning white and he's watching Magneto with a look Kitty can't bear to see. There's something raw and desperate in it, his eyes are open and yet muddy with emotions, like they are festering wounds beyond healing. While he can't seem to tear his gaze away from the other man, no matter how much it hurts, Magneto refuses to make eye contact. For what feels like hours he denies the Professor what he seems to want and fear most, and Kitty can't decide if it's childish vengeance or an attempt at mercy.

 

But in the end it's still Magneto that caves and utters the first words.

 

"How did you lose them?"

 

Kitty bites back a groan and looks out the window, trying to focus on peaceful clouds instead of the storm brewing inside the plane. She holds back, though, bites her lower lip to stop herself from forcing her memories of their future regrets upon their present.

 

It's only when the Professor stands, all of his desperation colliding with Magneto's body that Kitty forces herself to watch.

 

"You abandoned me," his voice breaks in too many places to bear and Kitty for a moment has trouble remembering the always steady voice of _her_ Professor. "You took her away and you abandoned me."

 

She thinks any man would cower on the ground seeing what his actions have brought upon a man as strong and exceptional as the Professor, but Magneto does nothing of the sort. He meets rage with rage, starts rattling the whole plane with his fury.

 

"Where were you, Charles..." he says and more and his voice is dripping with accusation. Kitty holds onto her seat and lets the wave of anger run its course. She wonders what the Magneto she knows and fought would say if he knew what she's witnessing now. "You abandoned us all," he says finally and though he seems more composed than the Professor, Kitty can see the way his back tenses when the Professor walks away from him, and she can tell he's fighting the urge to reach out.

 

"Next time, maybe try _Sorry_ ," she says in a bout of bravery she always knew she had but hasn't had to rely upon on a daily basis until not so long ago.

 

Magneto looks at her with annoyance but soon it fades and he only looks tired - as tired as she feels.

 

"An apology won't help him find back to himself. This just might."

 

Kitty lets her head fall back against the seat and she presses her fingers against the budding headache behind her temples.

 

"I'd rather you stopped saying things that will make me have to re-evaluate all that I've come to think of you."

 

It may be just a trick of the light, but for a moment it looks like Magneto's lips might twitch into a smile but Kitty doesn't want to find out if she's seen right, so she gets up and walks out after the Professor. There's too little room in the cockpit, but Kitty squeezes herself between Beast and the Professor and closes the sliding door behind her. She shares a sad smile with Beast before crouching down to be level with the Professor.

 

"It's not your fault," she says.

 

The Professor's face twists with pain though he tries to hide it with a grimace of a smile. "I never said it was."

 

"But you think it is."

 

"Erik thinks it-" his voice breaks and he hides his face in his hands. Kitty shifts closer and gently places her hand on his knee.

 

"I know it's not my place, Professor, but... he won't say it and you won't see it, so I will... he loves you, deeply. I've seen him walk away from you many times, I've seen him raise armies to fight you and all through it he never stopped loving you."

 

"Don't..." the Professor pleads quietly. "Please, don't."

 

Kitty nods and remains quiet, but presses her palm harder against the Professor's knee, hoping it to be taken as the comforting gesture it is meant to be. It takes a long time, but eventually the Professor places one hand on top of hers, vaguely resembling the warmth she is so used to from _her_ Professor.

 

"Did we really... send you back _together_?"

 

She smiles and nods. He takes a deep breath and blinks tears away. He tries to smile at her, doesn't quite succeed, but she takes it as progress.

 

"How does someone so young get so..." he doesn't find the words to describe her but there's unmistakable admiration in his voice and it fills her chest with pride. She smiles and says:

 

"I've had the best teacher."

 

\---

 

Erik doesn't go to Charles - not right away. This time he does it his way - or rather in a way that is some strange amalgamation of his own methods and Charles', and all the way through it he can almost _see_ those warm eyes teasing the weary old man he is, masquerading in his own young body.

 

He goes to Raven alone.

 

He can't help it, even as he's trying to dissuade her from the path he had set her on, he feels nothing but pride at the magnificent creature she was - is - will always be. It takes time, it takes a lot of tricks that never _quite_ worked on him when Charles was using them - except maybe they did, or he wouldn't be here right now. Ultimately he doesn't think there's a lot Charles couldn't make him do these days - and maybe things weren't all that different when they were young.

 

There is blood spilled. He wouldn't be himself if there wasn't. But he makes sure to keep Raven's soul clean and her blood out of the hands of those who could use it against them.

 

Erik expects to be ripped back in time into a better future the moment Raven agrees to go home. He hopes he won't have to face Charles in his desolate house and with his gift muted into nothingness. But the universe has a twisted humour and Erik has always known that better than anyone. So he has no choice but to drive Raven to the mansion and steel himself for what's to come.

 

Hank almost faints when he sees them, but immediately wraps Raven into his arms. There are tears in his eyes when hers are dry and tired, and he forgets about Erik completely as he leads her upstairs.

 

Erik hesitates. For a moment he honestly considers leaving, then changes his mind, walks into the study and pours himself a drink. He only hears muted voices from upstairs but even so he can almost _taste_ the overwhelming sense of relief in Charles' reaction at having Raven back home. They talk for hours, though Raven must be exhausted now that for the first time in too many years she can just let go, but Charles sounds overeager to make sure she is truly back, not just in body, but in soul too and Erik can't blame him for that.

 

He starts walking around in the study to pass the time, marks all the subtle differences between what he's seeing now and the first time he was here and all those later times. Eventually his eyes settle on an unfinished chess game on a coffee table and he idly considers a few moves before he realizes it's the game he and Charles left unfinished that day they left for Cuba. The realization makes him put down his drink and head for the door. This isn't what he signed up for - he did what he came back for, he saved Raven, prevented the end of the world, but reopening half a century old wounds was not on the table.

 

He's barely at the front door, though, when the familiar voice stops him.

 

"So you're just going to walk out again?"

 

The skin-deep cold fury in Charles voice makes Erik stop dead.

 

"I did what I came here to do," he says.

 

"So is what Raven said true? Are you really from the future?" then he adds more sharply. "Or is that just another trick?"

 

Erik turns around with clenched fists and anger flaring in his eyes but the sight of Charles hits him hard enough to make him gasp for breath. He never saw this the first time around - he never got to see Charles in unwashed clothes and with greasy hair and with that unmistakable smell of alcohol clinging to his skin. Even later, Charles always guarded those memories and somehow Erik never thought it could have been this bad.

 

"You look terrible," he can't help saying.

 

Charles' face twitches in a way that makes Erik think even his mere presence is enough to hurt Charles.

 

"I'm not going to say thank you," Charles says sharply. "You're the reason she left in the first place, so I'm not going to."

 

"Fair enough," Erik says. His nails are digging into his palms. He's had many reconciliations with Charles over the years but he never had to work for any of them as hard as he thinks he might have to work for this. Charles was always so desperate to forgive him and all Erik ever had to do was let him inside his head and actually mean at least half the promises he would inevitably end up breaking all over again. This is the first time he might have to actually say his apologies out loud.

 

"I'll go," he says instead but Charles calls after him.

 

"Stay. Raven would want you to."

 

Erik tries to breathe. "What about you, Charles? What do _you_ want?"

 

Charles runs a shaky hand through his hair and closes his eyes for a moment. "I haven't forgiven you," he says. "I'm not sure if I ever can."

 

Erik doesn't say that not being sure is better than knowing you can't. He doesn't say it but the tenseness in his shoulders eases a bit.

 

"Aright. How about we start with finishing that game? I think it's long overdue."

 

Charles' expression is unreadable as he's considering Erik's word, but eventually he nods slowly and says:

 

"It is, old friend. Long overdue."

 


End file.
